The story about the "leaked" results was interesting.
At the end of early voting on Saturday at 1 p.m. They let everyone in line finish voting., and then cleared the room except for the actual election workers, who happened to be 6 Democrats and 2 unaffiliated (there were Republicans, but they only worked a second shift, and there was no second shift that day).
The election workers went about their duties, such as counting unvoted ballots. There were ballots in each of six ballot styles which had to be reconciled, etc. One of the things they believed had to be done was run the results tape, which had all the results printed on thermal paper that tended to roll up.
There were three election workers designated as "judges". There was one head and two assistant judges. Among their duties was to sign the result tape, which they did. This is likely a vestige of when there were hand-counted paper ballots, and the election judges signed the precinct tabulation, which would be locked in the ballot box with the ballots before being delivered to the county.
Except after early voting is completed on Saturday this is not done. Apparently none of the judges or election workers realized this, and were not aware until when informed while they were testifying.
According to Agnes Willis, one of three judges, an election worker (incidentally a Democrat) exclaimed, "oh my god!" and commented that he had thought that the black guy had won, pointing to the the sheriff's race. He had the result tape unrolled, and was pointing at the race, as the other workers walked over. Another judge, who had been responsible for running the tape had testified that he must have rolled the tape out to permit signing (he was one of the three signers) and his eye had caught the sheriff's race. He did not seem to have any recollection of the other workers seeing it. The head judge was not aware of any of this, but had signed the tape and had taken the tape locked up in the "treasure box" to the county. She thought that the elections administrator had questioned her about the "leak" then, but on further questioning had admitted it might have been the following Monday when she was picking up election supplies.
Agnes Willis, told her daughter who lived in Raleigh (or perhaps Greensboro or Charlotte) about the incident on the phone that night.
Two days after the NCSBOE had not certified the results in late November, Willis got a phone call from a local lawyer that she did not know. After saying it would take her an hour to get dressed, he instead came over to house, with a notary in tow, and an affidavit that had biographical information about Willis typed out attesting that she was over 18 and of sound mind and body, and was a resident of Bladen County and a registered voter.
She said that she was confused about what the lawyer wanted to know, and that he seemed confused about what information he was trying to get. After he made several phone calls and talked to Willis, he filled in the affidavit (hand printed in a script that would you have guessed Willis had done it) that she observed officials who were not "judges" looking at the results, and that she understood that his was improper.
She clearly understood the distinction of the word "judges", but people casually reading the affidavit would not. The news stories were that outsiders were in the early voting location perusing the results.
She further went on saying that there appeared to be an unusual number of absentee ballots from one precinct, Bethel. This does not actually appear to be true. Bethel, along with the two Elizabethtown precincts and Bladenboro precincts have more voters. Bethel also had the highest election day votes - and she may have perceived some of these as being absentee ballots - which she claimed could be detected by crease marks from being folded.
As has been discussed earlier, there was not an early voting locations in Dublin (in Bethel precinct) and Bladenboro as there had been for the primary and previous elections. Election day voting in Bladenboro and Dublin was up in 2018 over the 2016, presidential voting. But that was because there was not convenient early voting. Moreover, election day voting in Elizabethtown was below 2016 levels, because it was easier to vote over several weeks than on election day.
In addition, Hurricane Florence had knocked out the regular polling place in Dublin (at the Lions Club), so voters might have been uncertain about voting on election day if they had known about the new location.
You should be going outside and having fun as opposed to spending days of your life arguing for some creepy pastor.
